


Of Sugary Cereals and First Times

by l10nelmessi



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-23
Updated: 2014-01-23
Packaged: 2018-01-09 17:31:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1148855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/l10nelmessi/pseuds/l10nelmessi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wonders what’s so fucking great about England, anyway. He wonders why people always chose England over him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> written for a muni/sergi prompt on fbk2. these two are absolutely adorable and i love them so i hope i did well! kudos and comments are insanely appreciated.

Sergi almost falls out of bed when his phone rings next to his face at two o’clock in the morning on a Monday. He squints at the almost blinding light of the screen, sees that it’s Marc. He contemplates hanging up, but it’s Marc, so he can’t. He wouldn’t. He slides his thumb across the screen to accept the call, and he groans into the receiver.  
  
“Call-ups!” Marc practically shouts, and Sergi winces.  
  
“Could you fucking not,” he mumbles, but he’s smiling. He can practically imagine Marc now, his bright brown eyes shining with excitement, pacing around the room like he always does, unable to sit still.  
  
“Aren’t you excited? I mean, after the last Euro…” he trails off, and Sergi can tell that he’s smiling, too. He likes that he knows what Marc sounds like when he smiles.  
  
“I know,” he says quietly, “that was...something else. ‘Course I’m excited, man. But you gave me a heart attack calling me like that, I was sleeping.” He turns over on his back to get more comfortable. “Hold on, isn’t it, like, one in the morning in Stoke-in-Trent or wherever you live now?”  
  
“Stoke- _on_ -Trent, Sergi,” he corrects gently, and then, “couldn’t sleep.” Sergi rolls his eyes. When they’d lived together, this had sometimes been an issue - Marc would stay up playing Halo or Call of Duty or whatever the fuck video game he loved so much, and Sergi wouldn’t be able to sleep for ages because of the loud sound of gunfire coming from their living room TV. As if that wasn’t enough, Marc would play that stupid Macklemore CD so much that Sergi could probably recite the lyrics to every song on it in his sleep. But he hadn’t complained, didn’t really mind it all that much, really, because it was Marc and he was there with him and that was enough.  
  
“You know,” he says slowly, “this might be the sleep talking, but I miss you.” There’s a sharp pain somewhere in his chest after he says it, and it’s suffocating, almost, how much he’s gotten used to having Marc there with him all the time.  
  
“Sergi,” Marc says quietly, softly. “Sergi, I-”  
  
“It’s okay,” he says quickly, but the pain is still there. “We talked about this, I get it. It’s just sometimes I miss you, is all.”  
  
“Only sometimes?” Marc teases, and Sergi makes a ‘tsk’ sound with his tongue against the roof of his mouth.  
  
“You know, Marc.”  
  
“I do. Hey, Sergio?”  
  
“How many times do I have to tell you not to call me Sergio?”  
  
“And how many times do I have to remind you I only do it to annoy you?”  
  
“Well, it sure as hell works,” Sergi grumbles, and Marc laughs. “What were you gonna say?”  
  
“It’ll only be a couple days,” Marc reassures him, “and then we’ll get to see eachother again.”  
  
“I can’t wait,” Sergi admits, and he feels a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.  
  
“Me neither. I’ll let you sleep now, if you want.”  
  
“Oh, I want,” Sergi laughs, and he can practically hear Marc rolling his eyes at him.  
  
“Stop laughing at your own joke and go to sleep, Sergi.”  
  
“Okay. You get some sleep too.”  
  
“Alright.”  
  
“Marc, I mean it. Don’t stay up eating fucking  _Zucaritas_  and playing video games.”  
  
Marc laughs, loud and warm, and Sergi wants to pull him into bed through the phone and never let him go again.  
  
“Jesus, I won’t. They don’t even have  _Zucaritas_  here, you idiot, they’re called Frosted Flakes or something.” His English is heavily accented, and Sergi finds it adorable.  
  
“Whatever, but still. Don’t stay up all night eating whatever the fuck they are and --”  
  
“I know, I know. God, you’re worse than my mom. But I probably would’ve done those things,” he laughs, “you know me so well, Sergio.”  
  
“Too well,” Sergi mumbles. “Good night.”  
  
“Night.”  
  
Neither of them hang up. Sergi can’t tell if Marc is still there at first, but after a while he vaguely hears a rustling noise that indicates Marc is getting into bed, and then, through the haze of his own sleepiness, he lets the sound of Marc’s steady breathing pull him under.  
  
+  
  
When he arrives at the Madrid town of Barajas for the  _concentración_  before they fly to Bosnia, Marc hasn’t gotten there yet. He automatically looks for Bartra, realises that he does that a lot now, since Marc’s gone. Sergi isn’t replacing him with Bartra, no way, he just...he doesn’t want to be so lonely all the time. Bartra helps him take his mind off things.  
  
Anyway, it doesn’t matter, because he soon remembers that Bartra’s gotten called up for the National Team, the senior one. Him and Tello. It still feels weird, not sharing a bus seat or plane ride with one of them.  
  
“Is Deulo coming?” Sergi asks Pablo as they haul their bags into the hotel.  
  
“Yeah, he should be here soon, flying from Liverpool and all.” Pablo smiles at him. “He seems really happy there.”  
  
“Yeah,” Sergi agrees half-heartedly, and he wonders what’s so fucking great about England, anyway. He wonders why people always chose England over him.  
  
 _“Sergi, I’m so sorry."_  
  
 _Silence._  
  
 _“Sergi, please. Just -- just look at me, please.”_  
  
 _Sergi looks up, reluctantly, meets Marc’s eyes, deep, clear brown to shocking blue-green. Marc steps half an inch closer, puts his fingertips to Sergi’s jaw. He’s always been a more physical person, he needs contact with people all the time. Sergi loves it but he hates it. Hates it because Marc always seems to win him back with the simplest little touches, touches that ask so much but say nothing at all._  
  
 _“I’m sorry, Sergi.”_  
  
 _“I know,” Sergi responds, and he doesn’t really know what to say, not anymore. “You want to go, you’re not getting time here, after -- your knee. I get it. It’s good for you.”_  
  
 _“You might get it, but you don’t understand it, do you?” Marc’s eyes are soft, like his voice, and Sergi marvels at how well he knows him. Then again, it shouldn’t really come as a surprise._  
  
 _“No, I don’t understand.”_  
  
 _“Football is everything, you understand that, don’t you?”_  
  
 _Sergi nods, because of course he does, everyone at Barcelona understands that. It’s natural, it’s simple, it’s them._  
  
 _“So think of it as just that. I’m moving for football. It’s not for me or for you or for anyone. I’m moving because that’s where football has taken me. And I’ll be back, I promise I’m coming back.”_  
  
 _“For football, or for me?” Sergi asks, and he knows he’s being an ass but he doesn’t care, he’s losing his best friend and more and it hurts, so much, somewhere deep in his chest and he can’t locate the pain, just knows it’s there._  
  
 _Marc smiles at him, sadly. “Can’t I come back for both?” he asks quietly. Sergi wraps his arms around his neck as a response, pulls him close and holds him there, his face buried in the side of Marc’s neck. He breathes in the smell of his skin, like vanilla and mint and sun, clean and warm. It calms him but it chokes him at the same time and Sergi doesn’t -- doesn’t want --_  
  
 _“I don’t know how to do this,” he says, and he hates that his voice is shaking. “I don’t know how to love you from far away.”_  
  
 _“Just love me the same as you do now,” Marc says, and his voice is calm , and there’s a slight smile on his face. “I’m still going to love you the same. Nothing’s going to change.”_  
  
 _“Everything’s going to change.”_  
  
 _Marc leans in and gently presses his lips to Sergi’s, soft and kind and Sergi’s heart hurts a bit more. “Nothing has to change, if you want to keep it the same.”_  
  
 _Sergi doesn’t remember wanting anything more in his life._  
  
“Roberto!” A yell sounds out from somewhere behind him, far away and too close at the same time, and he jumps, drops his door key. He looks around for the owner of the voice and finds Sergi -- one of the other two Sergis, anyway -- grinning at him.  
  
“Gómez,” he says in greeting, reaching out to hug him. He smiles as he pulls back.  
  
“What’re you doing out here? You’ve been standing in front of your door for, like, a thousand years.”  
  
Sergi blushes. “Just tired, I guess. Jet lag and all.”  
  
“Dude,” Gómez says, “you were in Barcelona, not Japan. What jet lag?”  
  
“Shut up,” Sergi laughs, shoving him. “I didn’t get much sleep last night.”  
  
“Nerves, huh?” Gómez asks, smiling sympathetically. “I didn’t sleep a lot last night, either. I’m just so pumped! Bosnia tomorrow, I can’t wait.”  
  
“Me neither.” And it’s not a lie, Sergi really can’t wait to play again, can’t wait to feel leather on leather as his boots hit a ball, can’t wait to smell the grass again, can’t wait.  
  
“Yeah,” Gómez agrees softly, and it’s like he’s thinking the same thing Sergi is. They probably are -- they all are, after that wonderful summer. “Well, my bag feels like it has a fucking dead body in it or something, it’s so heavy. I don’t even know what I packed in here, all I want to do is play right now,” he laughs. “I should get unpacked. You should, too.”  
  
“Yeah, probably. I’ll see you later, Gómez.” Sergi turns to slide his key into the slot, and he feels Gómez messing his hair up from behind him.  
  
“See you, Roberto.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Football is his morning and his night and quite a few things in between, and Sergi likes it that way. Wants it to be that way. Needs it to stay that way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shorter than the first, i know, but the next one will be longer. x

Sergi’s in the middle of his siesta when he feels someone climb onto the bed with him, and he already knows who it is without opening his eyes, because it’s him, finally, it’s--  
  
“Marc?”  
  
“Hey, Sergio.” Sergi opens his eyes, stares blearily up at the Catalan boy smiling softly down at him. Marc leans in and kisses his cheek, his jaw, down lower. “Can’t believe it’s been so long,” he mumbles against the skin of Sergi’s neck. Sergi’s happy and sleepy and he just wants to lie here with Marc for a long time.  
  
“Don’t,” he says quietly, and Marc looks up at him, concerned. “Don’t even get me started. Just...c’mere.” He pulls gently on Marc’s hair, urging him up so their lips finally meet again, and Sergi kisses him like a starved man would drink water. He just holds him there, drinking Marc in after so long apart, and that pain in his chest is gone, just like that. He hates how weak Marc makes him, but he can’t live without him because Marc makes him strong, too. Stronger than anything. And he wants to tell Marc all of this, to tell him he loves him, but they’ve never said it before, they both already know, anyway. So instead, he tangles his hands further in that sandy brown hair, pulling the other boy closer and he smiles when Marc does.  
  
“Come on,” Marc says suddenly, and he pulls out his phone. “Let’s take a picture.”  
  
“Now?”  
  
“Yes, now, you lazy ass. You don’t even have to do anything, just smile.”  
  
Sergi doubts that’ll be difficult now. Marc holds the phone some distance away, and they both grin like madmen at the lens. The same thing happens with Sergi’s phone, and then it’s quiet as Marc types out a caption while he posts his picture on to Instagram.  
  
“You think we should say something about Marc? Bartra, I mean?”  
  
“Yeah,” Sergi says, and he thinks,  _now’s the time to tell him, just tell him already,_ but he can’t, and he doesn’t know why. It’s not even a big deal, but--  
  
“You’re right,” Marc agrees, and Sergi reads over his shoulder as he types in Catalan.  
  
 _congrats **@marcbartra91!**  we wish you good luck from the  **#sub21**! we’re really happy for you!_  
  
“Do you want me to tag you?” Marc asks, and when he turns his head, their noses brush. Sergi laughs and says okay, pressing his lips to the corner of Marc’s smile.  
  
“Why do you hashtag ‘sub21’? Why can’t you just say it’s the under-21 team and that’s it?”  
  
“Because more people see it if it’s in the hashtag,” Marc explains, shrugging.  
  
“Yeah, well, that’s stupid.”  
  
“You’re stupid.”  
  
“That’s why you’ve been texting me nonstop for the past week, is it?” Sergi teases, and Marc shoves him before stretching and sprawling himself over his side of the bed.   
  
“You know,” Marc says, laughter on the edge of his voice, “I really can’t believe you commented that we look like boyfriends on that one picture I posted on Instagram.”  
  
Sergi can’t help but laugh and laugh. “That was ages ago! I told you, I was drunk--”  
  
“We both were, remember? It was a bit before I left.”  
  
“Yeah, I remember. ‘Cause we put up the  _‘felicitats’_  banner over the TV, right? God, the guys made fun of me forever after that comment.” Sergi cringes a little and Marc laughs.  
  
“Did you take that thing down yet?” Marc asks amusedly, and Sergi smiles at the memory of putting it up after they’d found out that Marc was going to Stoke. They’d pinned the banner to the wall, drank what felt like a million litres of cava, and played FIFA for the whole night, sometimes laughing until they cried and sometimes just kissing each other, smiling. Marc had posted the picture earlier in the day and Sergi rolled his eyes at the inclusion of the picture of them holding hands, because it was just a training exercise, but he let Marc do it anyway, because it’s Marc and he’d let him do anything.  
  
“Nope. It’s still up there. I don’t know why, but.”  
  
Marc pulls Sergi’s hand closer to him, traces the lines on his palm and Sergi smiles at the familiar feeling -- Marc’s done this since they were ten.  
  
“What time is it?” Marc asks, and suddenly he sounds sleepy. Sergi always wonders how Marc can do that -- he goes from one emotion to the other in giant leaps. One second he’ll be full of energy, bouncing around the place, and the next he’ll be practically dying of exhaustion. Probably a sugar crash from the fucking _Zucaritas_. Marc’s practically married to those things, he's always eating too much sugar.  
  
“It’s two,” Sergi says, checking on his phone. “We have an hour till we’re supposed to go down to eat.”  
  
“Good,” Marc mumbles, and he pulls Sergi down with him. They lay there, in their National Team polos and pants, and Sergi rests his head against Marc’s chest and listens to his heartbeat, steady like a drum. He can’t remember the last time he felt so happy. So complete.   
  
He can’t remember the last time he felt so much.

+

Deulo comes later, and Iker, Álvaro and Jesé, too. Sergi doesn’t realise how much he’s missed his friends until he’s sitting across from them at dinner. Oli and Carvajal get a little bit drunk off their wine and start singing really badly, much to everyone’s amusement. Sergi laughs until he cries and he videotapes the whole thing.  
  
Then training comes, finally, in the afternoon. They do stretches, laps and a quick _rondo_ before they break off into teams for scrimmage games. Sergi’s playing against Marc, but it just makes it even more fun when he slots a perfect pass to Deulo, who scores, and Marc tackles him to the ground. Sergi yells, “red card, penalty! Send him off!” over and over, and everyone laughs. El Mister comes around and tells them to get serious, and they sober up a bit, because the game the next day really is sort of a big deal, but they’re all so excited that it’s hard to totally calm down.  
  
He loves this feeling, loves being with his friends and being with Marc again and just playing  _football,_  the thing he loves almost more than anything. Football is his morning and his night and quite a few things in between, and Sergi likes it that way. Wants it to be that way. Needs it to stay that way.  
  
He heads back to the changing room after having scored two goals and made some pretty good passes in the scrimmage match, and he almost explodes with pride when el Mister claps him on the back and says, “that was good,  _niño._  Really good.”  
  
He grins all the way back to the changing room, and Marc catches up to him, slings an arm around his shoulders.  
  
“Both of your goals were offside and everything you did today sucked,” he says, and Sergi laughs.  
  
“Jealous much?” Sergi asks, turning to wink at Marc. “And for the record, you’re crap, too.”  
  
“Glad to know you two are supportive of each other as ever,” Deulo puts in, coming round to Sergi’s other side and smirking.  
  
“Geri,” Marc whines, “tell him his goals were offside.”  
  
“No way, man,” Gerard laughs, “I assisted one of them. It was not offside, you’re just--”  
  
“--jealous, right? That’s what I told him--”  
  
“--I hate you both,” Marc finishes, and he stalks into the changing room. Sergi feels a laugh bubbling up his throat and he can’t help but let it out -- this is the happiest he’s been in ages.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They’re chest to chest, heartbeat to heartbeat, and Sergi feels more at home than ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> San Jordi is basically the Catalan version of Valentine's day. Men receive books as gifts and women receive flowers, usually roses.

“So do you really hate me?” Sergi muses as Marc kisses a slow trail down his chest that night. Really, Sergi’s surprised that they’ve managed to put this off until night-time -- it’s been so long.  
  
“‘Course I do,” comes Marc’s voice, muffled by the skin of his stomach, and his stubble tickles in a way that isn’t at all unpleasant.  
  
“I don’t think you do,” Sergi teases, smiling. Marc grins back at him, that crazy stupid grin that Sergi’s in love with.  
  
“Don’t you?”  
  
“Not one bit,” Sergi says. “I think you might even like me.”  
  
“Wrong. I don’t  _like_  you.” Marc stops just when his lips are right above Sergi’s waistband. He climbs up to kiss Sergi on the mouth again, slow and soft, and he pulls a little on Sergi’s lips with his teeth. Sergi lets out a little groan, and Marc smiles. “I...Sergi, I love you.”  
  
Millions of letters, thousands of words, hundreds of phrases come to rest on the tip of Sergi’s tongue, right there, but he can’t say anything. He finds himself unable to speak, unable to breathe, even, because this is Marc, his best friend, his everything, really, and he loves him. And he knew, but hearing Marc say it -- it’s different. It changes everything, but not in the way Sergi had feared at first.  
  
So many things to say, but he can’t bring himself to say them. All he can manage is, “Marc.”  
  
“I know,” Marc says, and of course he does, he always knows. He leans in to softly press his mouth against Sergi’s. They’re chest to chest, heartbeat to heartbeat, and Sergi feels more at home than ever.   
  
He sucks on Marc’s bottom lip, and Marc makes a sound deep in his throat that makes Sergi want to do ridiculously hot things to him.  
  
He doesn’t know how, he doesn’t remember, but he has Marc laying on his back on the bed, in the reverse position they were in a moment ago. Sergi trails open-mouthed kisses down his chest, down his stomach, down down down and Marc arches his body into Sergi’s touch. He silently urges Sergi on, tugging on his hair and whispering encouragements and that _voice_ \--  
  
Sergi pulls off Marc’s pajama bottoms for him, runs his hands up tan, muscled thighs. He kisses the inside of Marc’s knee, where the injury used to be, and Marc smiles down at him and pushes his hair out of his eyes. His smile says, ‘thank you’.  
  
It all feels so natural, so normal and so right, when he kisses the skin of Marc’s hip, just above his Armani waistband (“Who buys Armani underwear, Marc?” “Shut up, they’re really fucking comfortable, okay?” “You’re turning into Cristiano Ronaldo.” “I am  _not!_ ”). It feels so right when he pulls down that waistband, hooking a finger on each side, and Marc lifts his hips to help get it off. And, oh yes, it feels more than right to finally get to touch Marc like this again, to touch him like no one else can touch him, to hear those sounds spilling from his lips, the gorgeous sounds that no one else gets to hear but him. This, perhaps, is Sergi’s favourite part -- the realisation that one saves himself for the other, and the other does the same. The realisation that they are each other’s, so deeply intertwined in each other’s lives, as deeply intertwined as their bodies are while they’re doing things like this.  
  
“Jesus _Christ,”_ Marc whispers, “come on, Sergi, you can’t fucking expect me to last forever.”  
  
Sergi laughs as he licks the tip of Marc’s cock with the flat of his tongue. “Sorry.”  
  
“Get on with it.”  
  
“Impatient bastard,” Sergi mutters against Marc’s inner thigh, but then he takes him deep into his mouth and Marc almost yells. Sergi pulls off quickly, but he strokes Marc with his fist wrapped around his cock to compensate.  
  
“Do you wanna fucking try not yelling to the heavens and waking up the entire hotel, please?” Sergi practically hisses at Marc, who smiles lazily down at him.  
  
“Sorry, I. You’re just so. Please do that again.”  
  
“I’ll do it again if you shut up.”  
  
Marc bites his lip, still grinning. Sergi grins back, and Marc fists his hand in Sergi’s hair when Sergi takes him back into his mouth. He tries to take as much as he can, and whatever he can’t fit in his mouth he has his fist wrapped tight around. He can feel pressure from Marc’s hand as he pushes down on his head, and it’s familiar from all the other times they’ve done this, and Sergi’s missed him so much. Too much.  
  
“Get up here,” Marc breathes, “c’mon, Sergi, come here.” Sergi climbs up his body and kisses Marc hard, and he presses his hips to Marc’s, grinding down on him, naked torso to naked torso. It’s a good thing that there’s a pillow behind Marc’s head, Sergi thinks, or else Marc probably would’ve gotten a concussion from throwing his head back so fast. He lets out a moan, barely trying to keep quiet, and Sergi hushes him with his lips.  
  
“Fuck, Sergi,” Marc whispers against Sergi’s neck, where he’s sucking hard enough to leave red marks. “Can we--”  
  
“Yeah,” Sergi says, and it’s like a jolt goes up his spine at the idea. He reluctantly gets up to get the lube from his bag -- they always come prepared on call-up duty, now -- and he squeezes some onto his fingers, hisses at how cold it is. They don’t have to use a condom, not now, after all these years together. It’s not that they’d jumped straight into bed without getting checked or anything, it’s just that they’ve never done it with anyone else and even now, each trusts the other enough to know that they aren’t sleeping around with anyone else. That trust hangs in the air around them, is conveyed in the way that Marc tucks a lock of hair behind Sergi’s ear and smiles just before Sergi leans in and kisses him quickly. Then, he kneels between Marc’s thighs, pushes a finger in, slowly.  
  
Marc lets out a soft ‘oh’ and Sergi can’t help but moan a little himself -- it’s been  _months,_  months without touching Marc, without seeing him like this -- he looks up and Marc has his head thrown back again, mouth open in a silent moan, breaths coming shorter and faster. His body is already shining with sweat, even though the air that’s drifting in from the open window is cooler than usual. He puts in another finger and Marc grips the base of his own cock, thrusting down a little onto Sergi’s fingers.  
  
“Marc,” Sergi practically chokes out, and his voice is full of want and maybe a little need.  
  
“Please,” Marc says in response, and Sergi has never wanted to so badly before.  
  
He pushes into Marc slowly, and he has to consciously try to be gentle because Marc’s just so tight around him. Nevertheless, when he’s completely inside Marc, he leans their foreheads together and mumbles, “is this okay?” against Marc’s lips.  
  
“Better,” he whispers, “better than okay.”  
  
“I love you,” Sergi says, and as he says it he feels like a giant weight has been lifted off of him, though he didn’t know it was there in the first place. Being with Marc was so easy and natural, they felt like they didn’t need to say 'I love you' to prove it. Now that they’ve both said it, it feels like something’s slipped into place -- or maybe something was there all along that neither of them had realised.  
  
Marc grins, looks up almost curiously into Sergi’s face. “Me too.” Sergi kisses him slowly as he starts to rock into him, but soon enough, Marc’s biting at Sergi's lower lip, running his nails down Sergi’s back, asking him for harder, faster,  _more_ and Sergi -- he can’t even --  
  
Marc comes first, over Sergi’s hand and his own stomach, and the clench around his cock coupled with the sight of Marc in front of him, hair tousled and neck flushed and come splattered down his stomach, and it’s all because of Sergi -- well. That sends him over the edge pretty quickly.  
  
“Fuck,” he mutters, and they both hiss as he pulls out. “Fuck, Marc.” Marc just giggles a little, sleepily, and he gets up to go get them a washcloth.  
  
After they clean up, they lay in Sergi’s bed, since it’s clean. Marc lays on his back and Sergi rests his head on Marc’s chest, the fingers of one hand tangled with one of Marc’s, while Marc’s other hand rests in his hair. Sergi feels safe here, wrapped in blankets and night-time and Marc.  
  
“Do you really love me?” Marc’s question takes Sergi so off-guard that he almost jumps. Marc is usually so confident, so sure of himself.  
  
“Are you blind?” He feels Marc’s laugh against his cheek. “‘Course I love you.”  
  
“You never say it.”  
  
“Neither do you.”  
  
“Why don’t we?”  
  
“I think,” Sergi says slowly, “it’s because it’ll lose its meaning if we say it too much. I don’t wanna end up like one of those weird sappy couples that just say ‘I love you’ and shower each other with kisses and buy each other a dozen roses each day and stuff. It gets meaningless, no?”  
  
“I guess you’re right. I’ve never thought of it like that,” Marc says thoughtfully, and Sergi thinks it’s strange but it’s not, how casually they’re talking about love. “You don’t like roses?”  
  
“Fucking hate them. They smell like trash.”  
  
Marc laughs. “Well, fuck. There goes your San Jordi present, you asshole.”  
  
“Marc, we’re both guys,” Sergi laughs, and Marc just keeps laughing with him. “We’d both get books.”  
  
“Yeah, but you’re illiterate, so the roses were a backup plan,” Marc says, his words difficult to understand through his laughter. Sergi pokes at his bare stomach, making Marc go “hey!” and laugh even harder. Sergi decides that if he can allow himself one cheesy thing a day, it’s got to be an appreciation of Marc’s laugh.  
  
“You’re a terrible boyfriend,” Marc pouts. “All you do is fuck me and make fun of me and sleep.”  
  
“I saved your dog from getting hit by a bike when I was thirteen and I fractured my ankle because the idiot on the bike hit me instead,” Sergi offers. “If that’s not romantic, I don’t know what is.”  
  
“My hero,” Marc mumbles sarcastically, but he starts to run his fingers through Sergi’s hair in that way he knows will put Sergi right to sleep. It’s comforting and solid and it’s Marc, and as annoying and stupid as he gets, Sergi loves him.  
  
“Damn straight,” he mumbles, and he lets Marc’s quiet laughter and his fingers running softly through his hair lull him to sleep.  
  
+  
  
Sergi’s stupid ringtone that he’s too lazy to change blares at him in the morning, from somewhere next to him. Marc actually jumps.  
  
“What the fuck is that.” It’s a statement, not a question, and Marc’s voice is rough with sleep. Sergi keeps his eyes closed, he’s so tired, and he smiles.   
  
“My phone, could you see what’s up?”  
  
“Well, now that I’m fucking terrified awake,” Marc mumbles, and Sergi reaches out to blindly ruffle his hair.  
  
“Stop bitching, Muni. Who was it?”  
  
He hears Marc’s smile in his voice at the use of the childhood nickname. “Bartra. It’s a text. It says, ‘oh, crap, I forgot to remind you. Did you lock the apartment door when you left for the airport?’”  
  
“Tell him yeah, I did.”  
  
“Okay,” Marc says, and Sergi can hear him tapping a response out on the screen of his iPhone. He opens his eyes and looks at Marc next to him -- light from the window behind him making him glow, almost, making the blonde of his hair even lighter, his skin look softer. Sergi can’t but grin.  
  
“Stop smiling, it’s gross,” Marc says, “you’re turning into one of those TV people. The ones you said last night you didn’t want to become.”  
  
“No I’m not,” Sergi says defensively, and Marc laughs.  
  
“You so are.”  
  
“Shut up.”  
  
“No, you.”   
  
“You literally act like you’re three years old, why do I even put up with you?”  
  
“Must be my dashing good looks.” Marc winks at him and runs a hand dramatically through his hair.  
  
“Something like that,” Sergi says, rolling his eyes, and his phone sounds again between them. Marc picks it up for him, smiling. When he reads the text, though, his smile totally disappears.  
  
“Sergi.” His voice has taken on that tone that Sergi knows all too well. It’s a dangerous tone, that voice where he’s trying not to yell or cry or both. Sergi feels like shit and he doesn’t even know why.  
  
“Um,” he says after a pause, and he thinks, _real fucking smooth._ “Yeah, Marc?”  
  
“What is this?” Marc turns the screen around, and it’s just another text from Bartra, only this time it reads:  
  
_ok good lol. wouldn’t wanna get my stuff stolen. sorry i didnt txt earlier, i was busy w NT stuff, u wouldn’t understand. ;) jkjk. send everyone kisses 4 me.  
_  
Shit.  
  
“Wouldn’t wanna get my stuff stolen?” Marc says slowly, as if Sergi can’t read.  
  
“I was going to tell you--”  
  
“Tell me what? That you went around sleeping with Bartra while I was gone? I--”  
  
“What the fuck, Marc!” Sergi almost yells, and how strange it is, he thinks, that they’re sitting in the same bed, in nothing but their boxers, and just five minutes ago everything was fine. “What the hell, why would you think I’m sleeping with him?”  
  
“Because he basically just implied leaving his things all over the apartment--”  
  
“We all hang out at the apartment!” Sergi says desperately, “the whole fucking team comes over! Everyone forgets their stuff sometimes! Piqué left his _son_ there once, for God’s sake--”  
  
“Yeah, well, I was there when the team came over, but now I’m not, and Bartra’s talking about leaving his stuff all over the place, and it sounds pretty permanent if you ask me.” Marc fixes him with a stare, and those eyes,  _his_  eyes. Sergi wants to hit Marc for being so stupid. He wants so desperately to rewind time and just kiss Marc until he forgot the phone even rang.  
  
“Bartra’s our friend,” he tries to reason, “he’s your friend as much as he is mine. Do you think that I’d ruin this -- I’d ruin what we have -- and I’d ruin my friendship with Bartra? How fucking stupid do you think I am?”  
  
“Pretty fucking stupid sometimes, Sergi,” Marc replies, and Sergi feels like he got slapped in the face. “Whatever.” Marc gets up, picks up his NT polo. “I should go, anyway. Iker’s...yeah. Waiting. Maybe I’ll talk to you later.”  
  
Sergi has never felt as hopeless as when he sees his best friend in the world, pretty much his other half at this point, walk out the door to their hotel room and slam the door behind him.  
  
+  
_  
“I bet you twenty Euros that you can’t eat thirty-five marshmallows without throwing up, Sergi.”  
  
“Muni, that’s really stupid. I don’t even like marshmallows.” Sergi pushes the bag away from where he’s laying in the grass on the back pitch of the new La Masia building, looking offended by the puffy white treats.  
  
“That’s why you have no friends. Marshmallows are the best.” Sergi ignores the jibe, because it’s just Muni. They’re allowed to joke like that, they’re best friends. Plus, Sergi knows he always, always has Marc.  
  
“Shut up. I’m not giving you twenty Euros. I need that money.”  
  
“For what?” Muni asks, and he sits up next to Sergi’s head, looks down at him with a soft look in his eyes.  
  
Sergi looks up at the sky. “A Xavi jersey,” he says quietly, “I really want one of those. ‘Cause I play midfield, like him. I’ve always wanted one, they’re just so damn expensive at the stupid FCBotiga.”  
  
“You can’t call the FCBotiga stupid, that’s like blasphemy,” Muni says, and Sergi laughs.  
  
“Yeah, well,” he sighs, “I don’t have enough money for it, anyway. And I can’t really find a proper job or anything, I’m only fifteen.”  
  
“So am I,” Marc says, “but we get a monthly salary or whatever from the club, don’t we? Perks of going to La Masia.”   
  
Sergi laughs again. “Yeah, you’re right. I always end up spending it, though. It’s so tempting to spend.”  
  
“I know,” Muni sympathises, then, “tell you what. If you eat the marshmallows without throwing up, I’ll give you twenty Euros to add to your Xavi-shirt collection fund. But if you puke, you don’t have to give me anything.” He smiles, wide and open. “What do you say?”  
  
“You really wanna watch me puke, huh?” Sergi asks, but he sits up and takes the bag anyway. Twenty Euros is twenty Euros. “Deal.” They grin and shake on it.  
  
  
  
  
Later, when Sergi’s done gagging bent over the toilet in their tiny bathroom at La Masia, and Muni’s holding his long-ish hair back for him and rubbing his back a little, Sergi mumbles, “this was so not worth it.”  
  
“Hey, look at the bright side,” says Muni, always the optimist. He grimaces a little as he takes a paper towel and wipes spit from Sergi’s lips, but he’s still smiling a little. “You don’t owe me anything. Plus, it’ll make for a good memory when we’re old and gray and still best friends.”  
  
Sergi supposes he’s right. He even manages to smile a little as Muni pulls him up from the floor. “You really think we’ll still be friends when we’re that old?” Sergi had never really had a lot of friends, always preferring to practice football alone, or work on his schooling -- he really wanted to make it big one day.  
  
“Of course we will, idiot,” Muni says, pushing his shoulder a little. “We’ll both be pro footballers, and we’ll both have played for Barca, obviously, until we retire. And we’ll win the Euro and the World Cup together, and then we’ll retire and what will we have?”  
  
“Loads of medals, loads of cash, and each other,” Sergi finishes, and they both crack up laughing.  
_  
+  
  
The training session in the morning goes terribly. Sergi is annoyed at everything, everyone, and he knows it’s unreasonable but he doesn’t care. No one, not even Gómez, succeeds in putting him in a better mood, and it’s only when el Mister screams at him to “deal with things that aren’t football off the God damned pitch, and don’t bring them onto it” that Sergi shoves all thoughts out of his head and trains harder, runs faster.  
  
He takes a quick shower afterwards, still avoiding everyone, and Deulo claps him on the shoulder as he leaves. “Sergi,” he says, and his voice is quiet and caring. “Could you two at least talk?”  
  
He sighs and leaves the changing room. He wishes it could be that easy.

+

He’s furiously throwing things into his suitcase when he hears the lock on the door slide open. Damn it, he thinks. He really does hate confrontation.  
  
Marc walks in without a word, not even making eye contact. He just picks up his own suitcase and starts rummaging through drawers, looking for anything he could’ve missed.  
  
“This is yours,” he says tensely, throwing a shirt at Sergi -- the shirt that Marc had arrived in yesterday. Sergi hadn’t even noticed it was his, he’s so used to Marc wearing his clothes. He just stares at the shirt in his hand, and fuck, it smells like him. It smells like Marc, like clean and sun and warmth, and Sergi just wants to stop fighting already. It’s only been a couple hours but it feels like a fucking eternity.  
  
“Marc,” he starts, but Marc just cuts him off.  
  
“Save it.”  
  
“I’m not asking you to believe me, all I’m asking you to do is listen. Can you do that? Can you listen to me?” he glares over at Marc, and eventually, Marc looks back at him.  
  
“What do you want.”  
  
“I don’t know what the fuck is going on in that head of yours, but I never fucked Bartra. Hell, I never fucked anyone after you left. Or before. I thought we were both clear on the fact that we’d never done it with anyone else before? We were each other’s first time, and second time, and all the times after that? Because that’s what I got out of it.”  
  
“Sergi,” Marc says, and he looks down at the ground. His voice is just on that edge, Sergi knows, that edge where he’s trying to make up his mind. “We were,” he says, and his voice is so soft.  
  
“We still are, right?”  
  
“Of course,” Marc says, and he steps closer, and Sergi knows he’s getting closer. “You’ll always be...well. You know.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“But it doesn’t make sense,” Marc says, and he’s on the defensive again. “He texts you that, and he’s staying at the apartment, and oh, God, Sergi, I thought you said last night that you--”  
  
“I still do!” Sergi says quickly, “I swear to God I do. I never slept with him, Marc, never, I--”  
  
“What the hell is he doing at the apartment then, for him to leave his stuff there?”  
  
“He’s looking for a house,” Sergi tries to explain. “He needed a place to stay, what was I supposed to say, no?”  
  
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” His voice takes on a pleading tone and Sergi thinks he has him back now, almost.  
  
“Because of this,” he says, gesturing between them. “I didn’t wanna ruin anything right when we got here. Like, ‘oh, hey, by the way, Bartra’s living with me’. I dunno, it would’ve been awkward.” It sounds so ridiculously stupid even to Sergi’s ears, but when he looks up, hand on the back of his neck and blushing like an idiot, Marc’s smiling a little bit at him.  
  
“I know what you mean. I’m sorry I was a dick and all. I just...it was a pretty big deal, what we said last night, and, I mean -- you’ll always be the only one. For me. My only one. And I just want to be the only one for you, too.”  
  
“Fucking hell,” Sergi breathes out, and he steps forward, closes the space between them and kisses Marc, hard, and this is how it should be. Marc kisses back just as enthusiastically, and Sergi feels like he could fly if he wanted to.  
  
“You’re the only thing I could ever want,” he says, quietly. “Marc, I promise.”  
  
“Pinky swear?” Marc asks, and he has that gleam in his eye, the teasing lilt to his voice and yes, he’s back, Sergi’s Marc is back.  
  
“I’d swear with every body part I have.”

+

They win against Bosnia, 2-1, and they demolish Albania 5-0. Iker and Oli get crazy drunk again, Gómez videotapes it and puts it on the internet, Isco and Álvaro sneak champagne onto the bus (though Sergi really has no idea where the hell they got it from and how they managed to hide it so well) and they all get a little tipsier, on their victory, on the champagne, on the thought of the wonderful things yet to come for them. They’ve got all the time in the world.  
  
Both Sergi and Marc have matches on the twenty-third of November, so neither can stay for a longer amount of time than usual. They go to the airport in Madrid, pick up their tickets. Standing there in Barajas, Sergi just wants to take Marc and drag him back to Barcelona with him. He wants to look at Marc’s ticket and find the seat number that comes right after or right before his. He wants to lay in bed and watch the lazy afternoon sun light up Marc’s tanned skin through the wide window of their room back home.  
  
“We’ll see eachother again soon,” Marc says, and he puts a hand carefully up to Sergi’s face, fingertips brushing his jawline, and it reminds Sergi so much of the first time Marc left that he has to close his eyes for a moment. Maybe it does the same thing to Marc, too, because he drops his hand.  
  
“Christmas?” Sergi asks, and Marc grins at him.  
  
“Do you even have to ask?” And Sergi loves how he doesn’t.  
  
“I want to kiss you.”  
  
Marc laughs. “Me too. But we’re in public, so I guess a hug will have to do.” He wraps his arms tight around Sergi’s middle, and Sergi pulls him in by his neck. They stay like that for a while and Sergi pulls back first, doesn’t want to be the one to be left behind again.  
  
“I’ll see you soon,” he says, smiling at Marc.  
  
“I’m counting down the days, Sergio.”  
  
Sergi rolls his eyes, but his expressions softens. “Text me, okay?” he asks quietly, and Marc presses a kiss to his cheek.  
  
“I promise.”  
  
So far apart and so close together, Sergi wonders if he’ll ever love anyone as much as he loves Marc. He decides that no one will ever come close to this. Nothing will.  
  
He looks into Marc’s calm, warm eyes again, and he’s home.


End file.
